CHAPTER XXIX.
BY THE BIVOUAC FIRE.
"Hold!" cried Cigarette, interrupting herself in her chant in honor ofthe attributes of war, as the Tringlo's mules which she was driving,some three weeks after the fray of Zaraila, stopped, by sheer force ofold habit, in the middle of a green plateau on the outskirts of a camppitched in its center, and overlooked by brown, rugged scarps of rock,with stunted bushes on their summits, and here and there a maritimepine clinging to their naked slopes. At sight of the food-laden littlebeasts, and the well-known form behind them, the Tirailleurs, Indigenes,and the Zouaves, on whose side of the encampment she had approached,rushed toward her with frantic shouts, and wild delight, and vehementhurrahs in a tempest of vociferous welcome that might have stunned anyears less used, and startled any nerves less steeled, to military lifethan the Friend of the Flag. She signed back the shouting, disorderlycrowd with her mule-whip, as superbly as though she were a Marshal ofFrance signing back a whole army's mutiny.
"What children you are! You push, and scramble, and tear, like a set ofmonkeys over a nut. Get out of my way, or I swear you shall none of youhave so much as a morsel of black bread--do you hear!"
It was amusing to see how they minded her contemptuous orders; how theseblack-bearded fire-eaters, the terror of the country, each one of whomcould have crushed her in his grasp as a wolf crushes a lamb, slunkback, silenced and obedient, before the imperious bidding of the littlevivandiere. They had heeded her and let her rule over them almost asmuch when she had been seven years old, and her curls, now so dark, hadbeen yellow as corn in the sun.
"Ouf!" growled only one insubordinate, "if you had been a day and nighteating nothing but a bit of moist clay, you might be hungry too."
The humiliated supplication of the reply appeased their autocraticsovereign. She nodded her head in assent.
"I know; I know. I have gone days on a handful of barley-ears. M. leColonel has his marmitons, and his fricassees, and his fine cuisinewhere he camps--ho!--but we soldiers have nothing but a hunch of bakedchaff. Well, we win battles on it!"
Which was one of the impromptu proverbs that Cigarette was wont tomanufacture and bring into her discourse with an air of authority asof one who quotes from profound scholastic lore. It was received witha howl of applause and of ratification. The entrails often gnaw withbitter pangs of famine in the Army of Algiers, and they knew well howsharp an edge hunger gives to the steel.
Nevertheless, the sullen, angry roar of famished men, that is soclosely, so terribly like the roar of wild beasts, did not cease.
"Where is Biribi?" they growled. "Biribi never keeps us waiting. Thoseare Biribi's beasts."
"Right," said Cigarette laconically, with a crack of her mule-whip on tothe arm of a Zouave who was attempting to make free with her convoy andpurloin a loaf off the load.
"Where is Biribi, then?" they roared in concert, a crowd of eager,wolfish, ravenous, impatient men, hungry as camp fasting could makethem, and half inclined even to tear their darling in pieces, since shekept them thus from the stores.
Cigarette uncovered her head with a certain serious grace very rare inher.
"Biribi had made a good end."
Her assailants grew very quiet.
"Shot?" they asked briefly. Biribi was a Tringlo well beloved in all thebattalions.
Cigarette nodded, with a gesture outward to the solitary country. Shewas accustomed to these incidents of war; she thought of them no morethan a girl of civilized life thinks of the grouse or the partridgesthat are killed by her lovers and brothers.
"I was out yonder, two leagues or more away. I was riding; I was on myown horse; Etoile-Filante. Well I heard shots; of course I made for theplace by my ear. Before I got up I saw what was the mischief. Therewere the mules in a gorge, and Biribi in front of them, fighting, monDieu!--fighting like the devil--with three Arbis on him. They weretrying to stop the convoys, and Biribi was beating them back with allhis might. I was too far off to do much good; but I shouted and dasheddown to them. The Arbis heard, Biribi heard; he flew on to them like atiger, that little Tringlo. It was wonderful! Two fell dead under him;the third took fright and fled. When I got up, Biribi lay above the deadbrutes with a dozen wounds in him, if there were one. He looked up, andknew me. 'Is it thee, Cigarette?' he asked; and he could hardly speakfor the blood in his throat. 'Do not wait with me; I am dead already.Drive the mules into camp as quick as thou canst; the men will bethinking me late.'"
"Biribi was always bon enfant," muttered the listening throng; theyforgot their hunger as they heard.
"Ah! he thought more of you than you deserve, you jackals! I drew himaside into a hole in the rocks out of the heat. He was dead; he wasright. No man could live, slashed about like that. The Arbicos had seton him as he went singing along; if he would have given up the brutesand the stores, they would not have harmed him; but that was not Biribi.I did all I could for him. Dame! It was no good. He lay very stillfor some minutes with his head on my lap; then he moved restlessly andtossed about. 'They will think me so late--so late,' he muttered; 'andthey are famished by this. There is that letter, too, from his motherfor Petit-Pot-de-Terre; there is all that news from France; I have somuch for them, and I shall be so late--so late!' All he thought was thathe should be so late into camp. Well, it was all over very soon. I donot think he suffered; but he was so afraid you should not have thefood. I left him in the cave, and drove the mules on as he asked.Etoile-Filante had galloped away; have you seen him home?"
There broke once more from the hearkening throng a roar that shook theechoes from the rocks; but it was not now the rage of famished longing,but the rage of the lust for vengeance, and the grief of passionatehearts blent together. Quick as the lightning flashes, their swordsleaped from their scabbards and shook in the sun-lighted air.
"We will avenge him!" they shouted as with one throat, the hoarsecry rolling down the valley like a swell of thunder. If the bonds ofdiscipline had loosed them, they would have rushed forth on the searchand to the slaughter, forgetful of hunger, of heat, of sun-stroke, ofself-pity, of all things, save the dead Tringlo, whose only fear indeath had been lest they should want and suffer through him.
Their adjutants, alarmed by the tumult, hurried to the spot, fearinga bread riot; for the camp was far from supplies, and had been illvictualed for several days. They asked rapidly what was the matter.
"Biribi had been killed," some soldier answered.
"Ah! and the bread not come."
"Yes, mon adjutant; the bread is there, and Cigarette too."
"There is no need for me, then," muttered the adjutant of Zouaves; "theLittle One will keep order."
The Little One had before now quelled a mutiny with her pistol at theringleader's forehead, and her brave, scornful words scourging theinsubordinates for their dishonor to their arms, for their treason tothe Tricolor; and she was equal to the occasion now. She lifted herright hand.
"We will avenge him. That is of course. The Flag of France never hangsidly when there is a brave life's loss to be reckoned for; I shall knowagain the cur that fled. Trust to me, and now be silent. You bawl outyour oath of vengeance, oh, yes! But you bawled as loud a minute ago forbread. Biribi loved you better than you deserved. You deserve nothing;you are hounds, ready to tear for offal to eat as to rend the foe ofyour dead friend. Bah!"
The roar of the voices sank somewhat; Cigarette had sprung aloft on agun-carriage, and as the sun shone on her face it was brilliant with thescorn that lashed them like whips.
"Sang de Dieu!" fiercely swore a Zouave. "Hounds, indeed! If it wereanyone but you! When one has had nothing but a snatch of raw bullock'smeat, and a taste of coffee black with mud, for a week through, is one ahound because one hungers?"
"No," said the orator from her elevation, and her eyes softenedwonderfully. In her heart she loved them so well, these wild, barbaricwarriors that she censured--"no, one is not a hound because one hungers;but one is not a soldier if one complains. Well! Biribi loved you; an
dI am here to do his will, to do his work. He came laden; his back wasloaded heavier than the mules'. To the front, all of you, as I name you!Petit-Pot-de-Terre, there is your old mother's letter. If she knew asmuch as I do about you, scapegrace, she would never trouble herselfwhether you were dead or alive! Fagotin! Here is a bundle of Parisnewspapers for you; they are quite new--only nine months old! Potele!Some woman has sent you a love-scrawl and some tobacco; I suppose sheknew your passions all ended in smoke! Rafle! Here is a little moneycome for you from France; it has not been stolen, so it will have nospice for you! Racoleur! Here is a love-billet from some simpleton,with a knife as a souvenir; sharpen it on the Arbicos. Poupard,Loup-terrible, Jean Pagnote, Pince-Maille, Louis Magot, JulesGoupil--here! There are your letters, your papers, your commissions.Biribi forgot nothing. As if you deserved to be worked for, or thoughtof!"
With which reproach Cigarette relieved herself of the certain pain thatwas left on her by the death of Biribi; she always found that to workyourself into a passion with somebody is the very best way in the worldto banish an unwelcome emotion.
The men summoned by their camp-sobriquets, which were so familiar thatthey had, many of them, fairly forgotten their original names, ralliedaround her to receive the various packets with which a Tringlo iscommonly charged by friends in the towns, or relatives away in France,for the soldiers of African brigades, and which, as well as his convoyof food and his budget of news, render him so precious and so welcome anarrival at an encampment. The dead Biribi had been one of the lightest,brightest, cheeriest, and sauciest of the gay, kindly, industriouswanderers of his branch of the service; always willing to lead; alwaysready to help; always smoking, singing, laughing, chattering; treatinghis three mules as an indulgent mother her children; calling them Plick,Plack, et Plock, and thinking of Plick, Plack, et Plock far beyondhimself at all times; a merry, busy, smiling, tender-hearted soul, whowas always happy, trudging along the sunburned road, and caroling inhis joyous voice chansonnettes and gaudrioles to the African flocks andherds, amid the African solitudes. If there were a man they loved, itwas Biribi; Biribi, whose advent in camp had always been the signalfor such laughter, such abundance, such showers of newspapers, suchquantities of intelligence from that France for tidings of which thehardest-featured veteran among them would ask with a pang at the heart,with a thrill in the words. And they had sworn, and would keep what theyhad sworn in bitter intensity, to avenge him to the uttermost point ofvengeance. Yet five minutes afterward when the provisions Plick, Plack,et Plock had brought were divided and given out, they were shouting,eating, singing, devouring, with as eager a zest, and as hearty anenjoyment, as though Biribi were among them, and did not lie dead twoleagues away, with a dozen wounds slashed on his stiffening frame.
"What heartless brutes! Are they always like that?" muttered a gentlemanpainter who, traveling through the interior to get military sketches,had obtained permission to take up quarters in the camp.
"If they were not like that they could not live a day," a voice answeredcurtly, behind him. "Do you know what this service is, that you ventureto judge them? Men who meet death in the face every five minutes theybreathe cannot afford the space for sentimentalism which those whosaunter at ease and in safety can do. They laugh when we are dead,perhaps, but they are true as steel to us while we live--it is thereverse of the practice of the world!"
The tourist started, turned, and looked aghast at the man who hadreproved him; it was a Chasseur d'Afrique, who, having spoken, wasalready some way onward, moving through the press and tumult of the campto his own regiment's portion of it.
Cigarette, standing by to see that Plick, Plack, and Plock were propertybaited on the greenest forage to be found, heard, and her eyes flashedwith a deep delight.
"Dame!" she thought, "I could not have answered better myself! He is atrue soldier, that." And she forgave Cecil all his sins to her with thequick, impetuous, generous pardon of her warm little Gallic heart.
Cigarette believed that she could hate very bitterly; indeed, her powerof resentment she rated high among her grandest qualities. Had thelittle leopard been told that she could not resent to the death whatoffended her, she would have held herself most infamously insulted.Yet hate was, in truth, foreign to her frank, vivacious nature; itsdeadliness never belonged to her, if its passion might; and at a traitakin to her, at a flash of sympathetic spirit in the object of herdispleasure, Cigarette changed from wrath to friendship with the trueinstinct of her little heart of gold. A heart which, though it had beentossed about on a sea of blood, and had never been graven with so muchas one tender word or one moral principle from the teachings of anycreature, was still gold, despite all; no matter the bruises and thestains and the furnace-heats that had done their best to harden it intobronze, to debase it into brass.
The camp was large, and a splendid picture of color, movement,picturesque combination, and wonderful light and shadow, as the sun-glowdied out and the fires were lighted; for the nights were now intenselycold--cold with the cutting, icy, withering bise, and clear above as anAntarctic night, though the days were still hot and dry as flame.
On the left were the Tirailleurs, the Zouaves, the Zephyrs; on the rightwere the Cavalry and the Artillery; in the center of all was the tentof the chief. Everywhere, as evening fell, the red warmth of fires rose;the caldron of soup or of coffee simmered, gypsy-like, above; the menlounged around, talking, laughing, cooking, story-telling at theirpleasure; after the semi-starvation of the last week, the abundance ofstores that had come in with other Tringlos besides poor Biribi causeda universal hilarity. The glitter of accouterments, the contents of openknapsacks, the skins of animals just killed for the marmite, the boughsof pines broken for firewood, strewed the ground. Tethered horses,stands of arms, great drums and eagle-guidons, the looming darkness ofhuge cannon, the blackness, like dromedaries couched, of caissons andambulance-wagons, the whiteness of the canvas tents, the incessantmovement as the crowds of soldiery stirred, and chattered, and worked,and sang--all these, on the green level of the plain, framed in by thetowering masses of the rugged rocks, made a picture of marvelous effectand beauty.
Cecil, looking at it, thought so; though the harsh and bitter miserywhich he knew that glittering scene enfolded, and which he had sufferedso many years himself--misery of hunger, of cold, of shot-wounds, ofracking bodily pains--stole from it, in his eyes, that poetry and thatpicturesque brilliancy which it bore to the sight of the artist and theamateur. He knew the naked terrors of war, the agony, the travail,the icy chills, the sirocco heats, the grinding routine, the pitilesschastisements of its reality; to those who do, it can no longer be aspectacle dressed in the splendid array of romance. It is a fearfultragedy and farce woven close one in another; and its sole joy is inthat blood-thirst which men so lustfully share with the tiger, and yetshudder from when they have sated it.
It was this knowledge of war, in its bitter and deadly truth, whichhad made him give the answer that had charmed Cigarette, to the casualvisitor of the encampment.
He sat now, having recovered from the effects of the day of Zaraila,within a little distance of the fire at which his men were stewing somesoup in the great simmering copper bowl. They had eaten nothing for nigha week, except some moldy bread, with the chance of a stray cat or ashot bird to flavor it. Hunger was a common thorn in Algerian warfare,since not even the matchless intendance of France could regularlysupply the troops across those interminable breadths of arid land, thosesun-scorched plains, swept by Arab foragers.
"Beau Victor! You took their parts well," said a voice behind him, asCigarette vaulted over a pile of knapsacks and stood in the glow of thefire, with a little pipe in her pretty rosebud mouth and her cap setdaintily on one side of her curls.
He looked up, and smiled.
"Not so well as your own clever tongue would have done. Words are not myweapons."
"No! You are as silent as the grave commonly; but when you do speak,you speak well," said the vivandiere condescendingly. "I hat
e silencemyself! Thoughts are very good grain, but if they are not whirled round,round, round, and winnowed and ground in the millstones of talk, theykeep little, hard, useless kernels, that not a soul can digest."
With which metaphor Cigarette blew a cloud of smoke into the night air,looking the prettiest little genre picture in the ruddy firelight thatever was painted on such a background of wavering shadow and undulatingflame.
"Will your allegory hold good, petite?" smiled Cecil, thinking butlittle of his answer or of his companion, of whose service to him heremained utterly ignorant. "I fancy speech is the chaff most generally,little better. So, they talk of you for the Cross? No soldier ever, of asurety, more greatly deserved it."
Her eyes gleamed with a luster like the African planets above her; herface caught all the fire, the light, the illumination of the flamesflashing near her.
"I did nothing," she said curtly. "Any man on the field would have donethe same."
"That is easy to say; not so easy to prove. In all great events theremay be the same strength, courage, and desire to act greatly in thosewho follow as in the one that leads; but it is only in that one thatthere is also the daring to originate, the genius to seize aright themoment of action and of success."
Cigarette was a little hero; she was, moreover, a little desperado;but she was a child in years and a woman at heart, valiant and ruthlessyoung soldier though she might be. She colored all over her mignonneface at the words of eulogy from this man whom she had told herself shehated; her eyes filled; her lips trembled.
"It was nothing" she said softly, under her breath. "I would die twentydeaths for France."
He looked at her, and for the hour understood her aright; he saw thatthere was the love for her country and the power of sacrifice in thisgay-plumaged and capricious little hawk of the desert.
"You have a noble nature, Cigarette," he said, with an earnest regard ather. "My poor child, if only----" He paused. He was thinking what itwas hard to say to her--if only the accidents of her life had beendifferent, what beauty, race, and genius might have been developed outof the untamed, untutored, inconsequent, but glorious nature of thechild-warrior.
As by a fate, unconsciously his pity embittered all the delight hispraise had given, and this implied regret for her stung her as the rendof the spur a young Arab colt--stung her inwardly into cruel wrath andpain; outwardly into irony, deviltry, and contemptuous retort.
"Oh! Child, indeed! Was I a child the other day, my good fellow, when Isaved your squadron from being cut to pieces like grass with a scythe?As for nobility? Pouf! Not much of that in me. I love France--yes. Asoldier always loves his country. She is so brave, too, and so fair, andso gay. Not like your Albion--if it is yours--who is a great gobemouchestuffed full of cotton, steaming with fog, clutching gold with one handand the Bible with the other, that she may swell her money-bags, andseem a saint all the same; never laughing, never learning, alwaysgrowling, always shuffling, who is like this spider--look!--a tiny bodyand huge, hairy legs--pull her legs, the Colonies, off, and leave herlittle English body, all shriveled and shrunk alone, and I should liketo know what size she would be then, and how she would manage to swelland to strut?"
Wherewith Cigarette tossed the spider into the air, with all the supremedisdain she could impel into that gesture. Cigarette, though she knewnot her A B C, and could not have written her name to save her own life,had a certain bright intelligence of her own that caught up politicaltidings, and grasped at public subjects with a skill education alonewill not bestow. One way and another she had heard most of the floatingopinions of the day, and stored them up in her fertile brain as a beestores honey into his hive by much as nature-given and unconscious aninstinct as the bee's own.
Cecil listened, amused.
"You little Anglophobist! You have the tongue of a Voltaire!"
"Voltaire?" questioned Cigarette. "Voltaire! Let me see. I know thatname. He was the man who championed Calas? Who had a fowl in the pot forevery poor wretch that passed his house? Who was taken to the Pantheonby the people in the Revolution?"
"Yes. And the man whom the wise world pretends still to call without aheart or a God!"
"Chut! He fed the poor, and freed the wronged. Better than patteringPaters, that!" said Cigarette, who thought a midnight mass at Notre Dameor a Salutation at the Madeleine a pretty coup de theatre enough, butwho had for all churches and creeds a serene contempt and a fiercedisdain. "Go to the grandams and the children!" she would say, with ashrug of her shoulders, to a priest, whenever one in Algiers or Parisattempted to reclaim her; and a son of the Order of Jesus, famed forpersuasiveness and eloquence, had been fairly beaten once when, in theardor of an African missionary, he had sought to argue with the littleBohemian of the Tricolor, and had had his logic rent in twain, and hisrhetoric scattered like dust, under the merciless home-thrusts and thesarcastic artillery of Cigarette's replies and inquiries.
"Hola!" she cried, leaving Voltaire for what took her fancy. "We talkof Albion--there is one of her sons. I detest your country, but I mustconfess she breeds uncommonly handsome men."
She was a dilettante in handsome men; she nodded her head now to where,some yards off, at another of the camp-fires, stood, with some officersof the regiment, one of the tourists; a very tall, very fair man, witha gallant bearing, and a tawny beard that glittered to gold in the lightof the flames.
Cecil's glance followed Cigarette's. With a great cry he sprang to hisfeet and stood entranced, gazing at the stranger. She saw the startledamaze, the longing love, the agony of recognition, in his eyes; she sawthe impulse in him to spring forward, and the shuddering effort withwhich the impulse was controlled. He turned to her almost fiercely.
"He must not see me! Keep him away--away, for God's sake!"
He could not leave his men; he was fettered there where hissquadron was camped. He went as far as he could from the flame-lightinto the shadow, and thrust himself among the tethered horses. Cigaretteasked nothing; comprehended at a glance with all the tact of her nation;and sauntered forward to meet the officers of the regiment as they cameup to the picket-fire with the yellow-haired English stranger. She knewhow charming a picture there, with her hands lightly resting on herhips, and her bright face danced on by the ruddy fire-glow, she made;she knew she could hold thus the attention of a whole brigade. The eyesof the stranger lighted on her, and his voice laughed in mellow music tohis companions and ciceroni.
"Your intendance is perfect; your ambulance is perfect; yourcamp-cookery is perfect, messieurs; and here you have even perfectbeauty, too! Truly, campaigning must be pleasant work in Algeria!"
Then he turned to her with compliments frank and gay, and full of adebonair grace that made her doubt he could be of Albion.
Retort was always ready to her; and she kept the circle of officers infull laughter round the fire with a shower of repartee that wouldhave made her fortune on the stage. And every now and then her glancewandered to the shadow where the horses were tethered.
Bah! why was she always doing him service? She could not have told.
Still she went on--and did it.
It was a fantastic picture by the bright scarlet light of the camp-fire,with the Little One in her full glory of mirth and mischief, and hercircle of officers laughing on her with admiring eyes; nearest her thetowering height of the English stranger, with the gleam of the flame inthe waves of his leonine beard.
From the darkness, where the scores of gray horses were tethered,Cecil's eyes were riveted on it. There were none near to see him; hadthere been, they would have seen an agony in his eyes that no physicalmisery, no torture of the battlefield, had brought there. His face wasbloodless, and his gaze strained through the gleam on to the fire-litgroup with a passionate intensity of yearning--he was well used to pain,well used to self-control, well used to self-restraint, but for thefirst time in his exile the bitterness of a struggle almost vanquishedhim. All the old love of his youth went out to this man, so near to him,yet so hopelessly severed f
rom him; looking on the face of his friend,a violence of longing shook him. "O God, if I were dead!" he thought,"they might know then----"
He would have died gladly to have had that familiar hand once more touchhis; those familiar eyes once more look on him with the generous, tendertrust of old.
His brain reeled, his thoughts grew blind, as he stood there among hishorses, with the stir and tumult of the bivouac about him. There wasnothing simpler, nothing less strange, than that an English soldiershould visit the Franco-Arab camp; but to him it seemed like aresurrection of the dead.
Whether it was a brief moment, or an hour through, that the circle stoodabout the great, black caldron that was swinging above the flames, hecould not have told; to him it was an eternity. The echo of the mellow,ringing tones that he knew so well came to him from the distance, tillhis heart seemed breaking with but one forbidden longing--to look oncemore in those brave eyes that made every coward and liar quail, and sayonly, "I was guiltless."
It is bitter to know those whom we love dead; but it is more bitter tobe as dead to those who, once having loved us, have sunk our memory deepbeneath oblivion that is not the oblivion of the grave.
A while, and the group broke up and was scattered; the English travelerthrowing gold pieces by the score among the waiting troopers. "Abientot!" they called to Cigarette, who nodded farewell to them with acigar in her mouth, and busied herself pouring some brandy into the oldcopper caldron in which some black coffee and muddy water, three partssand, was boiling. A few moments later, and they were out of sight amongthe confusion, the crowds, and the flickering shadows of the camp. Whenthey were quite gone, she came softly to him; she could not see him wellin the gloom, but she touched his hand.
"Dieu! how cold you are! He is gone."
He could not answer her to thank her, but he crushed in his the little,warm, brown palm. She felt a shiver shake his limbs.
"Is he your enemy?" she asked.
"No."
"What, then?"
"The man I love best on earth."
"Ah!" She had felt a surprise she had not spoke that he should flee thusfrom any foe. "He thinks you dead, then?"
"Yes."
"And must always think so?"
"Yes." He held her hand still, and his own wrung it hard--the grasp ofcomrade to comrade, not of man to woman. "Child, you are bold, generous,pitiful; for God's sake, get me sent out of this camp to-night. I ampowerless."
There was that in the accent which struck his listener to the heart. Hewas powerless, fettered hand and foot as though he were a prisoner;a night's absence, and he would be shot as a deserter. He had grownaccustomed to this rendering up of all his life to the rules of others;but now and then the galled spirit chafed, the netted stag strained atthe bonds.
"I will try," said Cigarette simply, without any of her audacity or ofher vanity in the answer. "Go you to the fire; you are cold."
"Are you sure he will not return?"
"Not he. They are gone to eat and drink; I go with them. What is it youfear?"
"My own weakness."
She was silent. She could just watch his features by the dim light, andshe saw his mouth quiver under the fullness of his beard. He felt thatif he looked again on the face of the man he loved he might be brokeninto self-pity, and unloose his silence, and shatter all the work ofso many years. He had been strong where men of harder fiber and lessductile temper might have been feeble; but he never thought that he hadbeen so; he only thought that he had acted on impulse, and had remainedtrue to his act through the mere instinct of honor--an instinct inbornin his blood and his Order--an instinct natural and unconscious with himas the instinct by which he drove his breath.
"You are a fine soldier," said Cigarette musingly; "such men are notweak."
"Why? We are only strong as tigers are strong--just the strength of thetalon and fang. I do not know. I was weak as water once; I may be again,if--if----"
He scarcely knew that he was speaking aloud; he had forgotten her! Hiswhole heart seemed burned as with fire by the memory of that one faceso familiar, so well loved, yet from which he must shrink as though somecowardly sin were between them. The wretchedness on him seemed more thanhe could bear; to know that this man was so near that the sound ofhis voice raised could summon him, yet that he must remain as dead tohim--remain as one dead after a craven and treacherous guilt.
He turned suddenly, almost violently, upon Cigarette.
"You have surprised my folly from me; you know my secret so far; but youare too brave to betray me, you are too generous to tell of this? I cantrust you to be silent?"
Her face flushed scarlet with astonished anger; her little, childlikeform grew instinct with haughty and fiery dignity.
"Monsieur, that question from one soldier of France to another isinsult. We are not dastards!"
There was a certain grave reproach that mingled with the indignant scornof the answer, and showed that her own heart was wounded by the doubt,as well as her military pride by the aspersion. Even amid the conflictof pain at war in him he felt that, and hastened to soothe it.
"Forgive me, my child; I should not have wronged you with the question.It is needless, I know. Men can trust you to the death, they say."
"To the death--yes."
The answer was thoughtful, dreamy, almost sad, for Cigarette. Histhoughts were too far from her in their tumult of awakened memories tonote the tone as he went rapidly on:
"You have ingenuity, compassion, tact; you have power here, too, in yourway. For the love of Heaven get me sent out on some duty before dawn!There is Biribi's murder to be avenged--would they give the errand tome?"
She thought a moment.
"We will see," she said curtly. "I think I can do it. But go back, oryou will be missed. I will come to you soon."
She left him, then, rapidly; drawing her hand quickly out of the claspof his.
Cigarette felt her heart aching to its core for the sorrow of this manwho was nothing to her. He did not know what she had done for him in hissuffering and delirium; he did not know how she had watched him all thatnight through, when she was weary, and bruised, and thirsting for sleep;he did not know; he held her hand as one comrade another's, and neverlooked to see if her eyes were blue or were black, were laughing ortear-laden. And yet she felt pain in his pain; she was always givingher life to his service. Many besides the little Friend of the Flag beatback as folly the noblest and purest thing in them.
Cecil mechanically returned to the fire at which the men of his tribewere cooking their welcome supper, and sat down near them; rejecting,with a gesture, the most savory portion which, with their customary loveand care for him, they were careful to select and bring to him. Therehad never been a time when they had found him fail to prefer them tohimself, or fail to do them kindly service, if of such he had a chance;and they returned it with all that rough and silent attachment that canbe so strong and so stanch in lives that may be black with crime or redwith slaughter.
He sat like a man in a dream, while the loosened tongues of the men rannoisily on a hundred themes as they chaffed each other, exchanged a fireof bivouac jokes more racy than decorous, and gave themselves to theenjoyment of their rude meal, that had to them that savor which longhunger alone can give. Their voices came dull on his ear; the ruddywarmth of the fire was obscured to his sight; the din, the laughter, thestir all over the great camp, at the hour of dinner were lost on him.He was insensible to everything except the innumerable memories thatthronged upon him, and the aching longing that filled his heart with thesight of the friend of his youth.
"He said once that he would take my hand before all the world always,come what would," he thought. "Would he take it now, I wonder? Yes; henever believed against me."
And, as he thought, the same anguish of desire that had before smittenhim to stand once more guiltless in the presence of men, and once morebear, untarnished, the name of his race and the honor of his fathers,shook him now as strong winds shake a tree that yet is fast r
ooted atits base, though it sway a while beneath the storm.
"How weak I am!" he thought bitterly. "What does it matter? Life is soshort, one is a coward indeed to fret over it. I cannot undo what I did.I cannot, if I could. To betray him now! God! not for a kingdom, if Ihad the chance! Besides, she may live still; and, even were she dead,to tarnish her name to clear my own would be a scoundrel'sbaseness--baseness that would fail as it merited; for who could bebrought to believe me now?"
The thoughts unformed drifted through his mind, half dulled, halfsharpened by the deadly pain, and the rush of old brotherly love thathad arisen in him as he had seen the face of his friend beside thewatch-fire of the French bivouac. It was hard; it was cruelly hard; hehad, after a long and severe conflict, brought himself into contentmentwith his lot, and taught himself oblivion of the past, and interest inthe present, by active duties and firm resolve; he had vanquished allthe habits, controlled most of the weaknesses, and banished nearly allthe frailties and indulgences of his temperament in the long ordealof African warfare. It was cruelly hard that now when he had obtainedserenity, and more than half attained forgetfulness, these two--herface and his--must come before him; one to recall the past, the other toembitter the future!
As he sat with his head bent down and his forehead leaning on his arm,while the hard biscuit that served for a plate stood unnoticed besidehim, with the food that the soldiers had placed on it, he did not hearCigarette's step till she touched him on the arm. Then he looked up; hereyes were looking on him with a tender, earnest pity.
"Hark! I have done it," she said gently. "But it will be an errand veryclose to death that you must go on--"
He raised himself erect, eagerly.
"No matter that! Ah, mademoiselle, how I thank you!"
"Chut! I am no Paris demoiselle!" said Cigarette, with a dash of herold acrimony. "Ceremony in a camp--pouf! You must have been a courtchamberlain once, weren't you? Well, I have done it. Your officers weretalking yonder of a delicate business; they were uncertain who best toemploy. I put in my speech--it was dead against military etiquette, butI did it. I said to M. le General: 'You want the best rider, themost silent tongue, and the surest steel in the squadrons? TakeBel-a-faire-peur, then.' 'Who is that?' asked the general; he wouldhave sent out of camp anybody but Cigarette for the interruption.'Mon General,' said I, 'the Arabs asked that, too, the other day, atZaraila.' 'What!' he cried, 'the man Victor--who held the ground withhis Chasseurs? I know--a fine soldier. M. le Colonel, shall we sendhim?' The Black Hawk had scowled thunder on you; he hates you morestill since that affair of Zaraila, especially because the general hasreported your conduct with such praise that they cannot help butpromote you. Well, he had looked thunder, but now he laughed. 'Yes, monGeneral,' he answered him, 'take him, if you like. It is fifty to onewhoever goes on that business will not come back alive, and you willrid me of the most insolent fine gentleman in my squadrons.' The generalhardly heard him; he was deep in thought; but he asked a good deal aboutyou from the Hawk, and Chateauroy spoke for your fitness for the errandthey are going to send you on, very truthfully, for a wonder. I don'tknow why; but he wants you to be sent, I think; most likely that you maybe cut to pieces. And so they will send for you in a minute. I have doneit as you wished."
There was something of her old brusquerie and recklessness in theclosing sentences; but it had not her customary debonair lightness. Sheknew too well that the chances were as a hundred to one that he wouldnever return alive from this service on which he had entreated to bedispatched. Cecil grasped both her hands in his with warm gratitude,that was still, like the touch of his hands, the gratitude of comrade tocomrade, not of man to woman.
"God bless you, Cigarette! You are a true friend, my child. You havedone me immeasurable benefits--"
"Oh! I am a true friend," said the Little One, somewhat pettishly. Shewould have preferred another epithet. "If a man wants to get shot as avery great favor, I always let him pleasure himself. Give a man hisown way, if you wish to be kind to him. You are children, all of you,nothing but children, and if the toy that pleases you best is death,why--you must have it. Nothing else would content you. I know you. Youalways want what flies from you, and are tired of what lies to yourhand. That is always a man."
"And a woman, too, is it not?"
Cigarette shrugged her shoulders.
"Oh, I dare say! We love what is new--what is strange. We arehumming-tops; we will only spin when we are fresh wound up with a stringto our liking."
"Make an exception of yourself, my child. You are always ready to do agood action, and never tire of that. From my heart I thank you. I wishto Heaven I could prove it better."
She drew her hands away from him.
"A great thing I have done, certainly! Got you permission to go andthrow a cartel at old King Death; that is all! There! That is yoursummons."
The orderly approached, and brought the bidding of the general incommand of the Cavalry for Cecil to render himself at once to hispresence. These things brook no second's delay in obedience; he wentwith a quick adieu to Cigarette, and the little Friend of the Flag wasleft in his vacant place beside the fire.
And there was a pang at her heart.
"Ten to one he goes to his death," she thought. But Cigarette, littlemischief-maker though she was, could reach very high in one thing; shecould reach a love that was unselfish, and one that was heroic.
A few moments, and Cecil returned.
"Rake," he said rapidly, in the French he habitually used, "saddle myhorse and your own. I am allowed to choose one of you to accompany me."
Rake, in paradise, and the envied of every man in the squadron, turnedto his work--with him a task of scarce more than a second; and Cecilapproached his little Friend of the Flag.
"My child, I cannot attempt to thank you. But for you, I should havebeen tempted to send my lance through my own heart."
"Keep its lunge for the Arbicos, mon ami," said Cigarette brusquely--themore brusquely because that new and bitter pang was on her. "As for me,I want no thanks."
"No; you are too generous. But not the less do I wish I could renderthem more worthily than by words. If I live, I will try; if not, keepthis in my memory. It is the only thing I have."
He put into her hand the ring she had seen in the little bon-bon box; aring of his mother's that he had saved when he had parted with all else,and had put off his hand and into the box of Petite Reine's gift the dayhe entered the Algerian army.
Cigarette flushed scarlet with passions he could not understand, and shecould not have disentangled.
"The ring of your mistress! Not for me, if I know it! Do you think Iwant to be paid?"
"The ring was my mother's," he answered her simply. "And I offer it onlyas souvenir."
She lost all her color and all her fiery wrath; his grave and gentlecourtesy always strangely stilled and rebuked her; but she raised thering off the ground where she had flung it, and placed it back in hishand.
"If so, still less should you part with it. Keep it; it will bring youhappiness one day. As for me, I have done nothing!"
"You have done what I value the more for that noble disclaimer. May Ithank you thus, Little One?"
He stooped and kissed her; a kiss that the lips of a man will alwaysgive to the bright, youthful lips of a women, but a kiss, as she knewwell, without passion, even without tenderness in it.
With a sudden impetuous movement, with a shyness and a refusal thathad never been in her before, she wrested herself from him, her faceburning, her heart panting, and plunged away from him into the depth ofthe shadow; and he never sought to follow her, but threw himself intosaddle as his gray was brought up. Another instant, and, armed tothe teeth, he rode out of the camp into the darkness of the silent,melancholy, lonely Arab night.